What Does 2 Chronicles 7:3 Mean in the King James?
And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The LORD’s “glory” is kavod, the weight that fills the house, so the people’s bowing is the body registering what their praise names as goodness and faithful love.
THE MEANING
You see the LORD’s presence fill the house, and your whole response comes into view: your body bows, your mouth praises, and you name the LORD’s goodness and faithful love as enduring. The verse joins perception, posture, and praise in one expression of reverence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that worship is only an inward feeling or spoken praise: here, the body also responds to what it sees.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
To be heavy or weighty.
English “glory” can sound abstract, but this root carries the sense of weight. The house is filled with that weight, and the people bow: the verse portrays the LORD’s presence as something that registers in the body.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
The root’s concrete sense makes the house-filling glory imaginable as weight and presence.
kavod: Weight, honor, glory.
כָּבוֹד
The same word holds together what is weighty and what is worthy of honor.
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful, enduring love.
“Mercy” can sound like a single act of pardon, while chesed names faithful love that endures. Here, that enduring quality is the ground of the people’s praise.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love.
חֶסֶד
This is the love the people name as enduring.
chasid: A faithful or devoted one.
חָסִיד
The related word describes a person characterized by the faithful love named in the verse.
יָדָה
yadah
GROWS FROM
ידה
To acknowledge, give thanks, or praise.
“praised” in this verse is yadah. The people’s praise is an act of acknowledgment, not merely a feeling about God. The related word todah makes the connection to thanksgiving explicit.
ALSO GROWS
yadah: To acknowledge, thank, or praise.
יָדָה
The verse uses this root for the people’s voiced response to the LORD.
todah: Thanksgiving; praise.
תּוֹדָה
This related noun shows praise as expressed thanks and acknowledgment.
THE PATTERN
Encounter with the divine draws the whole body into reverence, expressed through bowing, worship, or surrender.
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,THE THREAD
So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.The same Hebrew word, kavod (כָּבוֹד, weight or glory), appears as the LORD’s presence fills the house. Here that weight leaves the priests unable to stand, making the bodily force of the word visible.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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